


to cover fetters

by voksen



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen





	to cover fetters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StripySock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripySock/gifts).



On her way home, Favourite buys a shawl - a pretty thing, fine, expensive silk too light for the coming winter but with a deep rich color that will draw becoming highlights into her hair and match the tint of her lips. Settled around her shoulders, it conceals last year's now-unfashionable neckline and lends weight to her confident, carefree air; a weight she needs to hide the fluttering lightness in her stomach.

The change she spends recklessly in a patisserie and a chandler; two dozen iced biscuits and as many petite duchesses, a fresh fruit tart cunningly shaped to look like a rose, a large and thickly-iced cake, boxes of candies, sugared nuts, and fine smokeless candles: all of the little luxuries that she has been missing, all at once in a surfeit of extravagance. By the time she smiles her way past the portress and reaches her apartment, evening is falling fast and the lamplighters are out in force. She lights six candles at once, filling the front room with warm light and the smell of pastry and sugar, and draws the curtains against the dark outside.

Even surrounded by the silent familiarity of the space, she still feels as if she is going to burst with laughter. And that's all very well, laughter is fashionable enough, but this joke -- this joke! Leaving the boxes of sweets scattered across the floor, Favourite sets the last candlestick atop a low table, kneels in front of it, and pulls a small purse from within her dress, emptying it over the polished wood.

Thirteen louis. The coins catch the steady light of the candle; she lines them up in neat rows, as she has often had mademoiselle do with francs as illustration, and picks up the leftover one. It is solid and heavy, warm from her skin, it is real; as real as the red silk about her shoulders. "Another pretty adventure," she tells it, and at that the laughter can no longer be contained. She laughs freely; there is no one to hear her, with her mother a year in the grave and her friends and acquaintances scattered in the leanness of the season - there is no one who has a claim on her or her fortune, such as it is.

But it is a fortune, there is no doubt about that - counting what she'd spent, fifteen louis for a month's work - it is absurd; a man might think himself lucky to make half that; even when she had been younger, she had flirted handsomely with students who had less. But now it is hers, and there is no one to say what she might or might not do with it; if she does not want jewelry that does not suit her, if she does not want to be seen at unfashionable restaurants, if she does not want a dress that goes badly with her coloring -- well, she need not; she is free not to.

Favourite taps the coin against the table slowly, feeling her pulse slowing its tripping at last, the disbelieving giddiness of the afternoon receding, leaving behind a strange happiness. In some ways it still seems a farce; she has been ridiculously overpaid for tutoring a spoiled young girl, and she knows it. Yet she has been paid, and without a hint of resentment or mockery alongside the purse; without a hint that Monsieur wanted anything more from her than what he was getting. She is not sure what to think of that. 

Tossing the coin to join the others, she leans over, choosing a box at random and pulling it to herself and revealing an assortment of small tea-cakes. Choosing one, she bites off its dry, fluted edge thoughtfully. He really ought to have given some sort of hint; she is beautiful, after all, and in his house day after day, and even if he is old he might at least have smiled - or looked - or something. And it cannot be that he is simply so much of a confirmed bachelor as that, wedded only to his books, for there is the child. The thought that it is the memory of his dead wife is equally ridiculous, if not more; he may be a kind man, a generous man, not given to cruelty, but he is a man, and men are at their hearts the same. Besides, there are no portraits of dear departed Mme Fauchelevent anywhere to be seen.

It is the sort of thing she might have liked to puzzle at with a friend, tossing theories and conspiracies back and forth - preferably one who was as well situated as she, and so uninclined to poaching - but there are none to hand, and besides, Favourite thinks, with a small, fierce smile, perhaps she has never known someone in a position as fine as this. 

She tosses her hair back, licks the last lemony crumbs off her fingertips, and looks down again at the coins. A fine position for certain, and one she intends to keep for herself. She pulls three louis aside, stacking them one atop the other. Cosette is a bright child and it has been a long time since Favourite was a girl in her father's library, spying on his pupils, but soon the students will be dropping like leaves from any number of classes; with a smile and a kiss or two she'll find used books cheaply enough, though they'd never believe why she wants them - which will make it all the easier to laugh for them. 

It will be an entertaining game for a little while, at least, though the thought of fecklessly handsome young students no longer seems as tempting as it once had, even with the reins in her own hands. Perhaps when the girl is tired of mathematics, she might carefully suggest English lessons, for it is growing fashionable again, or dancing, which has never stopped being so; for those she will not need books to teach.

The rest of the coins she scoops up, pouring them between her hands a few times for the sheer pleasure of it and then at last back into the purse all together. A shawl will hide an out-of-fashion neckline, but when winter comes, there will be no disguising her old things. To judge by his daughter's clothes, M. Fauchelevent has a taste for pretty things on women, if no care for his own wardrobe; she has marked that well. If he is only shy, well, soon enough he will notice that Mlle Favourite is a woman as well, and as pretty as any others who might cast a glance his way, for she intends to stay until he does - and when he does, she intends to catch him fast.


End file.
